


you were born in this dirt, and you'll die in it

by Princex_N



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dehumanization, Gen, Introspection, Manipulation, Movie: John Wick: Chapter 3, Neurodivergent John Wick, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27784942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: "Who do you wish to die as, Jonathan?"Winston isn't wrong. That doesn't necessarily make him right.
Relationships: John Wick & Winston, Past Helen Wick/John Wick - Relationship
Kudos: 18





	you were born in this dirt, and you'll die in it

"The question is, who do you want to die as? The Baba Yaga? Or a man who loved and was loved by his wife?" 

John knows that Winston is right. 

He also knows that Winston is lying. 

John isn't stupid and he isn't blind, has never been fool enough to believe that Winston holds anything resembling true fondness for him. Winston does everything with calculation and purpose, sentiment has never factored into things for him as anything more than manipulation. Winston put a gun in John's hand and is speaking purely to save his own skin, not to help John preserve and honor the memory of his wife. He knows he can't win in a fight against John, so he's using the skills he does have instead. He'd invoke the two gifted hours if he thought they would work at this point - they were probably given with this exact possibility in mind. 

No, John knows. He's not surprised by it, not hurt by it. It is what it is, and the fact that he happens to be correct is just that, _happenstance_. Winston never knew Helen. 

Winston doesn't know that he _could_ have known her, either. 

By now it's better that way, of course. It had been unnerving enough, breaking apart the semi-permanence of concrete and returning to old haunts just to find everyone handing out condolences as if they'd been keeping tabs on him the entire time he'd been gone. Somehow it still baffles him that others find him interesting enough to trade gossip about. He doesn't know what they see in it all. 

But Helen had _known_ ; bits and pieces, the gist of things, a general idea of what John had been and what he had done. He had never quite committed to the concept of keeping it from her to begin with, and the night he'd accepted Viggo's Impossible Task he'd dropped all pretense to open the conversation wide himself. He'd wanted to make sure that she knew, just in case he _had_ failed, he'd wanted her to know that he hadn't simply left her, wanted her to know he thought she was well worth it all, and more. 

She'd stopped him before he'd gotten very far, the muscles in her hands and around her eyes tight as she interrupted his slow sentences to ask, "Do you enjoy it?" There had been something open and prying in her voice, a sharp blade in the look in her eyes. And John dug through himself for the feeling of enjoyment and sought to compare its shape to all of the years he had been working, pulling apart the slow and sluggish fog his truths and emotions had always been wrapped up in, working under the weight of Helen's quiet tense gaze. She hadn't rushed him while he searched - she'd never done so once the entire time he'd known her. 

He dug for enjoyment, found nothing but animal satisfaction in the shift of his muscles, in the weight of blows landing their marks, in the smooth twist of his body as he ran. There was a clarity, of sorts, in the simplicity of it all; nothing complex or verbal for John to slog through, just the instincts and reactions that had always come so naturally to him instead. There was never joy in the killing, though. He'd told her as much. 

(He did not, though, tell her that this was why some people preferred him to the ones that _did_ relish in it. Monster, machine, menace. The removal from it all made him more effective than anyone that could be swayed by preference or pleasure.) 

Somehow that had been enough for her, enough to satisfy any doubt or curiosity that she'd had. John would have told her everything if she had only asked, but she never did. Her steady strength and conviction in that decision awed John more than any of the flashy personalities and actions of others ever had. 

Helen had never asked him for details, but it had remained an open conversation between them all the same. She never shied away from his calloused hands, the scars on his body, the cold ice of his gaze when he'd spot someone he recognized. The routine of sparring together had been her idea first, some unspoken thing in him that she had seen anyway, and to this day John still can't quite figure out if it had been the need to prepare them both for the worst case scenarios or nothing more than nostalgia that she'd noticed. Neither of them had ever asked.

(She had never won against him, but she had been good before her body stopped letting her be. The feelings of 'fun' and 'joy' had never been easier for John to identify than when they were play wrestling on the floor like puppies.) 

He wonders if any of the people who had extended their sympathy would have ever pinned this as the reason why _coming back_ hadn't taken much physical effort. 

John grew up missing pieces, he grew up alien, grew up animal. Helen was the only one who took him as he was and simply loved him for it. 

John knows this. 

So, later, when John is arming himself for a fight he'd never truly wanted to begin with, when Winston tells him - the delicate glass of a drink in his hand, his suit clean and folds impeccable, the imperious coil of power wound up in his poise - to _"Do what you do best,"_ John does not expect anything kind when he asks what that is. 

_"Hunt_ ," he's told, and it does nothing but reaffirm everything that John has already known. 

John is a weapon, a tool, a monster, a dog; to most people, if not all of them. He always has been. Helen was the only exception to this rule, the only one who saw him any differently, and now that she's gone John will never be a person in the eyes of another human being ever again. 

(Would Winston find it funny that John had never quite doubted Helen's acceptance over these past weeks? But he still stops himself before he lets himself wonder what Helen would have answered to the same question - _what does John do best?_ He can't afford to hurt if he still expects to make it out alive.) 

He knows this. It does not surprise him. Very little surprises him, now. 

This does not mean that it does not strike like an open wound and ache like an old scar, this reaffirming of the natural order that John had not missed once during those few stolen years. 

Not that Winston needs to know any of this. 

(But it hardly matters, really, because Winston is right about this too. This _is_ what John does best. This is the only hand left for John to be dealt, now that Helen is gone.) 

(So when, eventually, _inevitably_ , Winston does what _he_ does best and works to save his own skin above all else, when John is once again discarded as a violent animal well past its prime and usefulness, he will not be surprised then, either.) 

(Not that he will be prepared enough to dodge the bullets before they strike.) 

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
